A committee has been formed by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in order to separate the income made by the 2G and the 3G services. Just two days before, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had expressed its concerns regarding the same, and DoT came up with this committee well in time. 

The function of the committee would be to find out a way or mechanism to segregate the revenues of 2G and 3G for a service provider, once the 3G services commence with its operations. Other than this, components like voice and data would also be studied along with roaming that will constitute a part of 3G revenues. 

It is being assumed that most likely 5.5 Mhz spectrum would be used by foreign players bidding for the 3G, which is the pre-requisite for delivering basic voice and data services, traditionally provided on the 2G spectrum. In such a case, a question arises that how would the ‘incremental revenue’ of 3G services be calculated. 

Thie committee was made since the recent modifications made by DoT, which said, “the licensee shall pay an annual spectrum charge of 1% on the incremental revenue due to 3G services after a period of one year,” It was opposed by Trai, since they considered it impossible to calculate revenues coming from 2G and 3G services, when both services are being provided by one service provider. 

The provision of triple pay services could be made by both the services, but the differences were that the 3G technology provides faster data speed. “There would be many common control equipment for 2G and 3G, hence appropriating the cost/revenue to the two services separately would be a complex and a cumbersome exercise,” informed the regulator. 

It was however brought to the notice of DoT by the Cellular Operators Association of India’s chairman; TV Ramachandran that it was quite feasible to calculate the revenues of 2G and 3G spectrums and it was already being done in Hong Kong.